MILES (michael caine's character) was Cobb's mentor and father figure. and there was a hint that Miles taught Cobb everything he knew.
POINT 1:
Ever wonder WHY Cobb failed to extract the information from Saito's dream even though Cobb was supposed to be the best extractor? Saito must have some pretty good help.
Who do you think can do that? MILES.
WHY you say?
POINT 2:
MILES was pushing Cobb in a certain direction.
POINT 3:
Ever wonder why they got rid of Cobb's original architect so that MILES can replace him with ARIADNE?
POINT 4:
ARIADNE was the one who convinced COBB to go after Fisher in LIMBO. The same way COBB convinced Fisher to go one level deeper.
POINT 5:
ARIADNE witnessed COBB's inception (the scene where MAL was dying). the same way EAMES (Tom Hardy) witnessed FISHER's inception.
POINT 6:
MILES was supposed to be in France. what's he doing in LA picking up COBB in the airport?
You are right and wrong. You're ignoring something; the characters ideally had to keep the mark from recognizing that they were even dreaming; therefore they had to make sure nothing too out of the ordinary/obscure happened. So, yes, they had to control what happened in the dreams by keeping control of their subconscious. They had to keep the dreams as realistic and low-key as possible.
My point was that, with the exception of some of the Cobb stuff we see, nobody in the film is JUST dreaming; there's always a purpose or intent from one or more of the characters in every dream we see, so it's not natural dreaming, therefore there's no point for the dreams to be fantastical.
The execution is original though. Obviously it's not the first film to bring up similar ideas, but again, I can't think of another movie that executed, or even used, the three-level/time-shifting dream layers, etc.
I had the feeling it was logarithmic rather than linear.
The time was also messed up because they seemed to spend longer in the 1st layer of dream than they did in the 2nd and longer in the 2nd than they did in the 3rd where as the premise said that in each layer of dream they would have a relatively longer time frame in which to carry out their goal for that dream layer.
Obviously the constrictions of having a film at a decent length would mean that they wouldn't have been able to show then living in the 3rd dream layer for years and years attempting to instigate the inception as it would've meant the film would have been about 5 more hours long but it did make the time frames feel like the opposite of what they said they would be. (shorter in each consecutive dream layer rather than longer)
Just saw it. It was extremely mediocre for me. The action scenes were great, the idea was good, and the dialogue was sometimes great. However, I found that the movie was tedious, the characters very two dimensional, and many moments unnecessary. 6/10
He wasn't supposed to be in France. Cobbs told his children on the phone that he would send presents home with Grandpa, therefore Miles was planning on going to the U.S. Cobb also told Miles that he was doing 1 last job in order to make it back to the U.S. to see his kids again. You put those things together and it makes perfect sense as to why Miles would be at the US airport.
Now, I'm not saying that your theory is incorrect, but I'm saying it is not the only option.
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Did they ever say if he is still married? Because if they are not married, it makes perfect sense for him to be living in a different area than the grandmother. And plenty of people don't live near their grandparents, so having Grandchildren in one country doesn't mean he has to live in that county. As for my "He wasn't suppose to be in France" statement, I meant that they said Miles was going to go to the United States, so it made sense that he was at the airport to pick up Cobb.
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So did anyone else think of Shadow Moses from Metal Gear Solid for the whole snow sequence? Especially the begging of that sequence when Leo was viewing the area through the sniper rifle. I thought it was actual game footage at first.
I don't think I'm wrong, even a little. Read on to find out why...
If that were true, then bridge the gap for me on this one: every last "mark" in the film knew that they were dreaming at some point.
Also, most people do NOT have lucid dreams and they very much think they are real (anyway), despite how very strange and "fantastical" they would be, if they were real.
We do know that it was not natural dreaming because it was drug induced dreaming.
And, yes, the dreams should have been fantastical because the marks are in their dream-state and the subconscious is creating those dreams, just he same as regularly. The only difference is people get to "ride" their dream with the ability to manipulate some elements.
I would say that even the total execution is not original (some parts were executed originally, though). I thought that the Matrix did a much better job of making a "shock" out of "dream" versus awake. Dreams within dreams have been done for about a century, in cinema. Sure, a triple-dip dream hasn't been done, to my recollection, but it's still just furthering an already done idea.
Overall, the film leaves me with a "meh, they could have done much better with this" type of feeling. That's why it didn't earn the coveted 9 out of 10 from me.
The mark didn't create the dream world. The architect did. It was explained that the more outlandish and fantastical you make the dream world the more the sub conscious of the mark looks for who is causing it because they (the manifestations of the mark's subconscious) know that it isn't the mark that's causing the changes and that someone must be interfering with the dream.
I think what I said is more accurate. There's no way that an architect can recreate all of those elements.
Remember when Cobbs is taking Ariadne for a walk through HIS memories when he is training her? That entire scene explained the whole thing for us and it is quite clear that the "mark" is doing most of the creating, via the subconscious, with the architect "assisting" with that creation proces. The only way for the architect to do as you say is if the architect was Professor X or Aro (from twilight), and we know that that is not true.
The vast majority of the "dream" is actually the mark's memories being recalled by the Mark's subconscious and the architect creates or recreates certain elements or at least manipulates certain elements to "guide" the mark to increase the probability of a successful extraction.
Just a quick response because I don't think we're going to agree.
To address your first point - "every last mark knew they were dreaming," how many marks were there? Two, right? Saito at the beginning and Fischer. Saito was auditioning Cobb and Arthur in the opening scene, this is why they failed their mission; because he knew. Later in the film, Cobb takes a risk (Arthur explicitly tells Ariadne that what Cobb is doing by "drawing Fischer's attention to the dream/obscurity" is dangerous/risky); he pulls it off but they say right there in the movie that if the mark knows he/she is dreaming, it's very risky.
And again, no the dreams shouldn't have been fantastical. Nolan's cold and analytical approach to dreaming is what set this movie apart from the dozens of other movies we've seen in which dreams consist of unicorns flying around and candyland sequences, etc. His approach to dreams is intentionally very literal, people keep their secrets in vaults; this is the style in which he wanted to make his film. You can't really argue with that. You don't think it worked, and that's cool; I thought it did for the most part. If the dreams were fantastical it would've changed the tone of the entire film.
Also, Fischer's subconscious apparently wasn't very wacky! Who are you to say that the character should've had a fantastical subconscious? Also, the environments were created by Ariadne, so that explains why they weren't fantastical.
However, I did wish there was more of the anti-grav fighting and stuff of that sort, because the snowy action scene in the third layer I thought was pretty underwhelming. Each layer should've been more exciting than the last and unfortunately, it wasn't that way.
You're right about one thing: it worked for they way Nolan did it. I did not think it failed, at all. It was quite good, actually. I just thought it could be better and it would have only helped make the mover better.
And the architects are supposed to create mazes out of the mark's memories. Notice that Adriedne's maze was "bland". That's because she had to wait until they were in the dream to contruct the world out of the mark's memories. It had to look very similar. Only thing she did was rearrange the buildings of the already existing world.
And, no, we do agree on most points.
It really boils down to this: You think it's more original than I do. You think the "real-world" dreams worked for the film better than a more realistic* (lol, that's like an oxymoron) dream.
*What I mean by that is: a realistic dream would have a constantly changing landscape, environment, people, motivations, events. The brain retrieves memories much faster in the dream state and it is quite a bit more fanciful and unrealistic. That's what I mean by more realistic dreams. In fact, what Adriedne was doing when she first started in the dream was much closer to what a dream would really be like. I wish that they would have made the dreams more like that. Not to use a bland comparisons, but think of it as the dorm halls at Hogwarts, except worse.
We really don't disagree, beyond that. We agree on almost every single element: excellent acting, excellent score, great story, nicely take on dreams with dreams, plot flowed well, etc. It really is a good film. I just had 2 minor complaints: the math on levels and the bland "linear"ness of dreams.
The way I understand it is that the architect designs the environment and teaches it to the dreamer. We saw Ariadne teaching the designs to each of the dreamers. So the architect only designed but the dreamer creates the levels based on the designs.
I'm a little confused by your use of the word "mark". When Cobbs was teaching Ariadne the workings of the dream, she was the dreamer and he brought his subconscious into the dream. But with Fisher who I believe was the mark you were talking about, he was never the dreamer. So he never had any hand in creating the world, which is the point. Because if he did create the world then his subconscious who know the layout defeating the purpose of having an architect designing the dream.
To be clear, the dreamer on the first level was the chemist. I know that because they commented the rain was a result of him drinking too much before going into the dream. That's also why he didn't go under again because that level would fall apart if he did.
The dreamer on the second level was Arthur as he made the comment that Fisher's subconscious would be looking for him. That is why he didn't go under the second time, because alas the dream would fall apart.
The dreamer on the snow level was Eames. I know that because when they missed the first kick and needed a shortcut through the level Cobbs asked Ariadne if Eames added any features. Also that's why they needed Eames to distract the projections because they would naturally go after the dreamer. That's why he couldn't go into limbo because the dream would fall apart without him.
Don't ask me about Limbo because I don't know, but at no point was Fisher the dreamer, so he had no part in the creation of the dream. All he did was filled it with his subconscious.
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Jul 23rd, 2010 07:25 PM
